Their video definitely resonated with my experiences on Club Penguin.
No other site captured nearly as much of my childhood online like Club Penguin (Disney Channel Asia was a distant second). I definitely felt the separation between the naked/mismatched fashion worn by non-members and the members’ drip. I was so desperate, I sought out paid-to-click sites with my friend to try and make money to afford a membership. I actually made a few dollars, albeit over the course of a year and ultimately lost due to a scam. It took me a year to recover the money, and in that time, I managed to persuade my parents to finally relent and provide their credit card details for a monthly membership. Boy did I celebrate that Christmas.
I was actively perusing the “guide”/”cheat” sites, tracking the new pins, event tips, even tracking the elusive Rockhopper/Sensei/Gary/AA to get their special autographed backgrounds. The mutual interests of other kids (and grown-up millennials) on these communities also drove me to hang out on Flash-based “Xat” chatrooms. I was most active on the Jmann93 one, and felt really proud when attaining moderator status there, only to lose it because I immediately stopped actively logging on after.
One thing that the Burbacks neglected to mention, however, was also the rise of merchandise and real money-can-buy items outside of the memberships. After Disney bought them, you start to see a real mobilization of Club Penguin toys, books, and other merch. More importantly, these things generally come with an online benefit, whether it be coins, Card-Jitsu cards, special items, and more excitingly… permanent access to typically members-only clothing/pets/items. This actually provided a way for those without membership to sample the high life, and not be dependent on a monthly subscription – that is as long as you keep your parents buying the new merch. Even before I started being a Club Penguin member, and for a while after, I really bought into the merch whenever I can. They don’t sell them where I live, so I hunt for them every time I go overseas. I remember scouring every Toys ‘R Us I laid eyes on to hopefully see Club Penguin stuff, with varying success.
The books were easier and the first I got as the range of bookstores that stock them were more diverse. I later learnt that you don’t even need to buy the books to redeem the online benefit, many of those guide/cheat sites have a dictionary of words the website asks for to prove you bought the book – refresh til you find a question on the list and enter the word/s. The toys took a bit more effort to find, but I do find them in stock here and there whenever I went overseas. While I first redeemed them for proper clothing as a non-member, my tastes graduated to off-catalog items – items that were cycled out of the typical clothing catalog on the Club Penguin game, but otherwise available by redeeming a code from the toys. Later when Card-Jitsu decks came out, I got a whole booster box, which, while they don’t offer members-only stuff the way toys do, they gave you access to exclusive cards in the Card-Jitsu game, with special effects for the rare cards that you add from the physical booster packs to your online profile! I also bought the “Game Day” Wii game, but due to complications with my Wii unit I sadly only played it a couple of times and never collected my rewards online.
Given the rise of smartphones and decline of attention spans of kids today, I doubt there’d be another magical experience quite like Club Penguin again. It’ll always hold a special status as my first real internet game, and an obsession of my pre-teen days.
While I didn’t partake, booze was also available at the drinks stand, a rarity for food courts in Indonesia.
It doesn’t look like much, but this does jog memories of my childhood, especially for the Siomay (shu mai). I used to take Kumon maths classes (I hated it) after school, and I remember the Siomay stand being a mainstay right in front of the Kumon building as I waited to go home. Can’t remember the price, but it was definitely crazy cheap, and you get a plastic bag of fresh steamed Siomay, doused in spicy peanut sauce. You press the bag to push a piece up to the bag’s opening and munch away. It’s something that’s quite unique, one that I haven’t seen served at any restaurant while living overseas.
The kway teow was less about the taste (it’s delicious), though I did miss eating out being super cheap. I’m pretty sure this huge portion cost less than 5 US dollars, while a menu I’m looking at as I type this bills the Char Kway Teow at 16 US dollars. I guess in at least this way, I do miss living in Indonesia.
For those who are wondering, this was at a food court at Pluit Village Mall. They also have an awesome Cow Play Cow Moo arcade, albeit not having any Taiko no Tatsujin machines.
It’s been years since I had the passion to blog routinely back in high school. College came and went, and I settled with maybe one post every month, or maybe every other month. 2022 and 2023 were quite emotional years for me personally, though with all the travels and experiences I continue to capture during that time, I can’t stop blogging forever.
Fortunately, things have gotten better this year so far. Better prospects at work and more favourable government regulations allow me to plan better while living in a foreign country, and with the new friends and social circles I’ve discovered through various volunteering efforts, it’s been fun talking and sharing my life with even more people.
The back-half of this year should be just as fun. Still have a few trips already planned out, cool projects at work, major moves determining where I’d be living for the next few years, with more entertaining anime coming out for the slow moments in-between. 2024 looks bright.
Having visited the Ghibli Museum in the past, I was excited to see Ghibli’s attempt at a bigger, Disneyland-like venue. Unfortunately, I was quite underwhelmed by what I saw.
I never thought my home country would have not just a bullet train, but also the first bullet train in Southeast Asia. It’s amazing how a trip to the neighbouring city of Bandung went from a 3-hour car ride to just 1! Apart from the slight louder noise from other passengers and the super cringey way they end their onboard announcements, the experience is very similar to the Japanese Shinkansen.
Super proud of this achievement and I do encourage you to try it if you ever go to Jakarta and make a day trip to Bandung (a pretty cool city in itself). Tickets start at just $16 each way.
Anyone else read The 39 Clues? This definitely hits a lot of nostalgic spots.
The 39 Clues was a staple of my grade school days. I remember seeing the cover at a Scholastic Book Fair catalog in my school. From there the obsession continued. Not living in America, I actually had to rely on the bookstores getting the imports quickly. Generally, at best I see them on shelves a month after release, at worst (as is the case with The Black Circle) it took about 3 months. There was that time with The Emperor’s Code where the book went on the shelves about a week prior to release though, I remember manually typing out the continuation to Gordon Korman’s excerpt video and posting it to the Cahill forums – Google Lens wasn’t a thing back then.
The story was good but what really got me was the cards and the Flash missions and the virtual cards/clues collection. I got all 39 clues, became a Madrigal and continued reading and playing up until around the crazy American politician/billionaire arc, or was it the one replicating famous disasters? I don’t think I finished the arc, but I got too lazy to continue reading. I revisited the new games over at the Scholastic website, though it’s sad that my collected clues and cards did not carry over. I put a lot of effort on that. I’ll also still remember my own custom agent card. I know it’s one of the first 30 cards made and my “name” was SecretAssassin1.
Regardless, the series holds a special place in me. The subsequent arcs are definitely less memorable, but I still remember the original clue hunt arc. I’ve always wanted to see a graphical representation of the story – the Japanese comic looked promising, but sadly I can’t read much of it – hence why the graphic novel definitely caught my attention. Sara’s reaction to it definitely matched a lot of my sentiment, except maybe Saladin. I like that the comic version is way cuter, but I think the Egyptian lineage and spots is important, particularly for the cryptex clue in Beyond the Grave. I do look forward to see the entire arc adapted, and will definitely buy the One False Note comic if/when it comes out.
Peso 
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